moccasin

American  

[mok-uh-sin, -zuhn] / ˈmɒk ə sɪn, -zən /

noun

• moccasins
  plural

1. a heelless shoe made entirely of soft leather, as deerskin, with the sole brought up and attached to a piece of u -shaped leather on top of the foot, worn originally by the American Indians.

2. a hard-soled shoe or slipper resembling this, often decorated with beads.

3. any of several North American snakes of the genus Agkistrodon (Ancistrodon ), especially the cottonmouth.

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moccasin British  

/ ˈmɒkəsɪn /

noun

1. a shoe of soft leather, esp deerskin, worn by North American Indians

2. any soft shoe resembling this

3. a sheepshearer's footgear, usually made of sacking

4. short for water moccasin

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• moccasins
  plural

Etymology

Origin of moccasin

1605–15, < Virginia Algonquian < Proto-Algonquian *maxkeseni

Compare meaning

How does moccasin compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• water snake vs. moccasin

Explanation

If you lose a moccasin on your way to work, it means you'll be walking around with only one shoe all day. A moccasin is a soft leather slip-on shoe. Virginian Algonquins get credit for the word moccasin, though a relative of it existed in other American Indian languages to designate a leather shoe so elegant in design that it's now known around the world. Less well known, perhaps, is the correct spelling, which you see here. Everyone seems to know there's a double letter but fewer remember that it's the c, not the s.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

moccasin moccasins

Then with my own kids making their own memories, watching the peanut butter being made, choosing moccasins from the now-gone moccasin shop at the Dell.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2024

Her team then checked this in a variety of snakes - dissecting a total of nine species including the carpet python, puff adder and Mexican moccasin.

From BBC ● Dec. 14, 2022

“He was kind of a grumpy snake, and everybody was going, ‘Omigod, omigod, it's a water moccasin, kill it!’” she recollects.

From Scientific American ● Sep. 18, 2022

He and his brother gave their father, who had been wiped out, $20,000 each from their trust funds to start a new business: importing shoes, in particular a moccasin, from Brazil.

From New York Times ● Jul. 2, 2022

The dog trainer then had hauled him toward the fence to point out another moccasin, then another, and still another—nine in all.

From "Hoot" by Carl Hiaasen

There I met Nikola Pavlovic, a genial salesman wearing a flamingo-patterned bucket hat atop long hair, canvas moccasins and a shirt covered in psychedelic flowers.

From New York Times ● Jan. 30, 2024

Mattel should have considered traditional pucker toe moccasins, instead of black shoes, and included symbols on the basket that Cherokees use to tell a story, she said.

From Washington Times ● Dec. 4, 2023

Dressed in tan pants and tan lace-up moccasins with a pale blue shawl wrapped around her shoulders, she walked for a quarter of a mile before stepping off the path.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 7, 2023

Indigenous Environmental Network’s program director, Kandi White, said in a news release that Braun was the type of person that would “give her last meal or pair of moccasins to those in need.”

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 28, 2022

Tongues flicking, some of the moccasins extended to their full lengths while others coiled sluggishly.

From "Hoot" by Carl Hiaasen

Related Words

• sandal